Launched from a hill, the first Russian howitzer landed in a nearby field. “They’re fixing it now, it will take a few minutes and then it will fall all over the place, on us and in the city,” warns Yegor, a 34-year-old soldier.

Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, singer of Ukraine’s most famous rock band “Okean Elzy”, wears a bulletproof vest during the chaotic battle for Barvinkove on Ukraine’s eastern front. A soldier runs to take a selfie.

“We came to raise the morale of the soldiers, we came to see the children, I will sing a little song for them,” the 46-year-old star told AFP.

“Their morals are extraordinary,” he adds. “Well, they’re not happy to be here (…) But they’re very determined and determined to win. That’s why we’re here, so they know everything will be alright.”

But after two months on the front and two hard weeks trying to contain the offensive on the Kremlin’s orders in this now priority area, things are not looking so good.

“The situation at the moral level is complex. Everything is not rosy,” Irina Ribakova, press officer of the 93rd brigade, told AFP.

“Of course we prepared for this war, especially the professional army, but for recruits the situation is more complicated,” the soldier explains as the sound of a Russian attack echoes.

“Psychological warfare”

At the Barvinkove entrance, 5 km from the Russian lines, six mobilized soldiers, standing guard at a checkpoint, prepare to jump at any moment into the trenches they dig with their shovels every day.

“It’s either that or we’re dead,” summarizes Vasil, 51, who enlisted with his 22-year-old son, Denis.

A wood fire heats a pot made of military scrap with some carrots, potatoes, and onions. With the support of the locals, the rations are in good condition “except for the cigarettes,” he says.

And officially, you’re not drinking a drop of alcohol at the front.

In the bunker, dug under a relief, six soldiers sleep huddled between two guards. On the Donbass front, night is worse than day.

The spokesperson for the brigade, who was guiding along a road near the small town, says the Russian army chose the dark to fire their largest-caliber guns.

It is a three meter tall cylinder planted in the middle of the field. The thruster of the Tochka, a massive Soviet-made short-range ballistic missile.

The attack exploded early Saturday near an abandoned school that serves as a base for soldiers, leaving a 15-metre-diameter crater there.

“Chess”

Moscow announced on Friday that it plans to maintain full control over the Donbass and southern Ukraine to “provide a land corridor to Crimea” annexed by Russia in March 2014.

A few cities like Izium or Kreminna have fallen over the past two weeks, and as Russia continues to advance, the Ukrainians have been limited to containing the attacks for several days.

The 93rd Brigade says, “We have a multi-part line that does not follow the river, the road or the highway. Now for us it is a city, one for them, one for us, it’s like a game of chess.”

The area adapted to stop the advance of the enemy: holes in the railways, kilometers of trenches, bridges exploded, concrete areas taken from the roads, prepared to receive mines that exploded when Russian armored vehicles passed.

The losses in the Donbass war are already high, admit it, soldiers found by AFP. The local military administration refuses to publish a balance sheet.

When a soldier is questioned, he starts insulting the Russians and can’t hold back his tears. He says his 25th brigade has taken the hardest hit in three weeks.

“I lost a good friend. His wife is going to have a baby in a few days, we prefer not to say anything,” he explains.